THE  CLAIMS 
OF  THE  MOSLEM  WORLD* 


BY  ROBERT  E.  SPEER.  NEW  YORK 


evangelizing  the  Moslem  world? 

In  the  first  place,  we  are  under  a 
peculiar  debt  to  the  Mohammedan 
peoples  because  their  religion  is  the 
only  one  of  the  great  religions  of  the 
world  which  came  after  Christianity, 
and  which  repudiated  Christianity. 
There  are  great  areas  of  the  world 
which  once  were  Christian  but  now 
are  Mohammedan.  There  are  peoples 
which  once  were  Christian  but  now 
are  Mohammedan.  There  are  church 
buildings  which  once  were  Christian 
which  Christians  may  not  enter  to- 
day. It  was  a right  instinct  that  lay 
at  the  basis  of  the  Crusades,  altho  the 
method  was  wrong ; an  instinct  in 

#Frora  an  address  at  a parlor  meeting  under 
the  auspices  of  the  New  York  Committee  of  the 
Nile  Mission  Press,  December  7,  1911.  Mrs.  E. 
E.  Olcott,  Treasurer,  38  West  Thirty-ninth 
Street,  New  York  City.  Reprinted  from  The 
Missionary  Review  or  the  World,  March,  1912. 


HAT  are  some  of  the 
considerations  on  the 
basis  of  which  we 


fmake  our  appeal  to  the 
Christian  Church  to 


take  a new  interest  in 


Christendom  which  filled  it  with  a 
sense  of  horror  and  of  shame  that 
great  areas  which  had  belonged  to 
Christ  had  been  handed  over  to  Islam. 
We  need  to  recover  these  areas  in  our 
day.  In  Mohammedism  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a religion  which  has  reck- 
oned with  our  religion,  or  thinks  that 
it  has,  which  has  rejected  it  and 
usurped  its  inheritance,  and  we  are 
called  to  go  out  to  reclaim  that  which 
once  belonged  to  our  Lord. 

The  Moslem  Barrier 

In  the  second  place,  we  must  deal 
with  Mohammedanism  because  it  has 
interposed  itself  as  a barrier  between 
two  great  sections  of  the  world  which 
ought  to  have  found  their  nearest  ap- 
proach across  the  territory  which  Mo- 
hammedanism usurped.  Dr.  Nitobe,  at 
Columbia  University,  made  allusion 
to  this  fact,  pointing  out  that  there 
was  no  original  chasm  between  the 
East  and  West — when  the  Persians 
poured  over  into  Europe  and  when 
the  Europeans  poured  back  into  Per- 
sia ; when  ideas  flowed  to  and  fro 
from  the  East  and  West.  There  were 
great  currents  of  human  movements 
between  them  until  that  wall  of  Mo- 


hammedanism  arose  in  the  seventh 
century  and  the  natural  roads  of  in- 
tercourse were  closed.  It  is  high  time 
that  we  removed  that  barrier  which 
has  intervened  between  the  East  and 
the  West.  It  is  true  that  commerce 
passes  more  easily  over  the  water  than 
over  the  land ; but  religion  moves 
from  community  to  community,  and 
Christianity  should  have  gone,  and  no 
doubt  would  have  gone,  hundreds  of 
years  ago  eastward  overland  into 
Asia  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  great 
area  which  Mohammedanism  made 
an  interracial  barrier. 

The  argument  has  been  often  ad- 
vanced that  Mohammedanism  was 
not  an  absolutely  dead  wall,  but  was  a 
real  channel  of  communication ; that 
there  was  a great  intellectual  light 
shining  in  Islam.  Any  one  who  has 
taken  the  trouble  to  study  the  ques- 
tion, even  second-hand,  as  most  of  us 
have  only  been  able  to  do,  must  ac- 
cept the  judgment  set  forth  in  Sell’s 
“Faith  of  Islam,”  in  which  he  holds 
that  all  the  science  was  Grecian  in  its 
foundations;  that  not  one  great  phil- 
osopher who  arose  was  an  Arab;  that 
the  men  who  wrote  the  greatest 
treatises  in  Arabic  were  without  ex- 


ception  Spaniards  or  Persians;  that 
Islam  never  produced  a great  book  on 
science  or  philosophy  whose  transla- 
tion has  been  demanded ; that  it  never 
conquered  a people  with  a literature; 
that  it  never  was  a channel  of  com- 
munication between  the  East  and  the 
West.  It  was  an  intellectual  non-con- 
ductor, a massive  racial  and  religious 
barrier. 

Moslem  Women  and  Children 

In  the  third  place,  we  are  called  to 
work  for  the  Mohammedan  world  to- 
day, and  this  ought  to  appeal  to  every 
true  instinct  in  us — because  that  re- 
ligion has  borne  down  most  heavily 
upon  the  weakest  and  most  defense- 
less classes — upon  the  women  and  the 
children.  It  is  the  religion  that 
has  done  most  basely  for  womankind 
by  its  doctrine  of  polygamy  and 
divorce.  A great  part  of  the  degrada- 
tion of  womanhood  in  India  is  due  to 
Mohammedanism  and  Buddhism,  not 
to  Hinduism  at  all.  The  Mohammedan 
conception  of  women  has  degraded 
woman  as  she  has  been  degraded  by 
no  other  religion  of  the  world,  and 
the  Mohammedan  doctrine  of  divorce 
has,  of  course,  poisoned  the  life  of 
childhood  throughout  the  Moham- 


medan  world,  making  it  impossible 
for  children  to  grow  up  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  purity.  The  great  majority 
of  humanity  is  made  up  of  women  and 
children,  and  upon  these  Islam  has 
borne  down  with  heaviest  depression. 

The  Power  in  Iilam 

In  the  fourth  place,  we  are  called 
upon  to  toil  for  these  Mohammedan 
peoples  because,  nevertheless,  we  have 
in  them  a great  mass  of  powerful  en- 
ergy and  virility  with  which  to  work, 
that  we  may  take  their  energy  and 
power  and  commit  it  to  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  I do  not  refer  to  moral 
and  intellectual  virility.  Dr.  Cochran, 
who  was  born  in  Persia  and  spent  all 
his  life  there  as  a medical  missionary, 
whose  profession  brought  him  into 
the  most  intimate  relations  with  all 
classes  of  men  in  Persia,  told  me  that 
deeply  as  he  regretted  to  say  it,  he  had 
to  acknowledge  that  he  had  almost 
never  met  a morally  pure  Moslem  in 
all  northwest  Persia.  In  India  the 
moral  tone  of  Mohammedanism  is 
lower  than  that  of  Hinduism.  The 
Mohammedans  have  never  been  an 
intellectual  race.  They  have  no  idea 
of  history,  they  study  no  literature 
and  their  ideas  are  those  of  twelve 


hundred  years  ago.  There  has  been 
no  quickening,  intellectual  life  among 
them.  But,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
there  is  no  nonchristian  race  of  more 
masculine  vitality  and  power.  No  one 
who  has  traveled  through  Asia  has 
failed  to  be  imprest  by  this  whenever 
he  has  passed  through  the  Moham- 
medan races.  We  are  called  to  take 
possession  of  this  virility  for  Christ, 
who  needs  all  that  latent  power  that 
is  waiting  to  be  used  in  the  work  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  world. 

The  Hopelessness  of  Islam 

In  the  fifth  place,  we  are  called  to 
take  a deeper  interest  in  this  work 
for  Mohammedans  because  of  the  ut- 
ter hopelessness  of  these  peoples  un- 
der the  influence  of  Islam.  There  can 
be  no  dispute  that  wherever  Moham- 
medanism has  gone  it  has  either  found 
a desert  or  made  one.  The  greatest 
waste  areas  of  the  world  fall  within 
the  borders  of  Islam.  Take  one  after 
another  of  the  countries  that  Moham- 
medanism has  dominated;  they  were 
prominent  and  industrious,  but  the  in- 
fluence of  Islam  has  simply  destroyed 
industry,  civilization,  thrift,  comfort, 
plenty  and  left  them  in  devastation 
and  ruin.  We  asked  men  in  Persia 


again  and  again,  fourteen  or  fifteen 
years  ago,  how  they  accounted  for  it 
that  the  fruits  of  Islam  were  so  dis- 
mal in  Moslem  lands,  while  the  Chris- 
tian lands  contained  all  the  progress 
and  life  of  the  world.  Some  of  them 
said:  “If  you  look  back  you  will  see 
that  between  1,000  and  1,500  years 
after  the  beginning  of  each  religion 
comes  the  dark  age.  Christianity  has 
had  its  dark  age,  and  now  Moham- 
medanism has  its,  and  our  reformation 
will  come  just  as  yours  came.”  Others 
of  them  would  sadly  abandon  all  such 
hopes  and  admit  that  Christians  had 
the  better  of  it  in  this  world,  but  that 
Mohammedans  were  to  have  their 
share  in  the  other ; that  Christians 
would  pay  then  for  their  advantages 
here,  while  Mohammedans  would  en- 
ter into  the  paradise  which  had  been 
reserved  for  the  faithful.  The  fact  is 
that  those  nations  are  held  in  a death 
grip  by  Islam,  and  there  is  no  progress 
for  them  save  as  they  shake  off  the 
evil  which  Islam  has  wrought  by  the 
perpetuation  of  the  crude  social  and 
political  ideas  of  Arabia  in  the  seventh 
century  by  placing  those  ideas  in  an 
unalterable  book,  a book  to  be  the  law 
of  man’s  life  forever. 


Kinship  to  Christianity 

We  owe  a great  debt  to  the  Mo- 
hammedan world  because  we  dare 
not,  feeling  the  thrill  of  the  life  that 
is  guiding  us,  leave  these  nations  to 
their  death  and  hopelessness  and  de- 
cay, from  which  they  can  never  es- 
cape save  as  they  escape  from  their 
faith,  and  accept  instead  of  its  death, 
the  life  of  Christ. 

We  owe  a special  debt  to  this  Mo- 
hammedan world  because  it  is  so  akin 
in  its  religious  faith,  in  some  respects, 
and  in  others  so  alien  to  our  Christian 
inheritance.  We  have  so  much  in  com- 
mon on  the  one  hand — our  clean, 
strong  monotheistic  faith.  They,  too, 
have  an  uncompromising  faith  in  one 
God.  They  hold  with  us  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  only  sinless  prophet. 
We  have  that  great  point  in  common 
with  them.  They  admit  that  alone  of 
all  their  prophets,  Mohammed  not  ex- 
cepted, Christ  was  the  sinless  one. 
They  admit  our  Christian  scriptures 
as  sacred  books,  but  they  believe  that 
what  we  call  Christian  scriptures  are 
corrupted.  Historic  criticism  fights 
on  our  side  in  this  matter.  All  this 
antagonism  to  the  Christian  scrip- 
tures on  that  ground  must  die  away. 


We  have  these  great  points  in  com- 
mon. 

On  the  other  hand,  think  how  deep 
the  divergences  are.  They  have  no 
perfect  moral  code.  The  Koran  can 
not  endure  the  light  of  day  as  a book 
of  ethical  principles  and  ideals.  In 
the  second  place,  in  spite  of  their  faith 
Mohammed  is  not  an  ideal ; he  did  not 
claim  to  be  their  ethical  ideal ; he  nev- 
er said  of  himself  what  our  Lord  said 
of  Himself:  “Which  of  you  convinces 
me  of  sin?”  They  have  no  pure, 
moral  code  embodied  in  a person  and 
they  have  no  living,  abiding  Power  by 
which  that  moral  code  is  to  be  in- 
corporated in  the  lives  of  weak  and 
sinful  men. 

We  are  called  to  share  with  them 
the  faith  that  has  done  for  us  every- 
thing and  that  can  do  everything  also 
for  them. 

We  owe  a great  debt  to  this  Mo- 
hammedan world  because  of  the  tre- 
mendous changes  that  are  shaking  it 
in  our  time.  The  unity  of  Moham- 
medanism has  often  been  held  up  to 
us  as  a reproach,  but  Mohammed  held 
that  Mohammedanism  was  to  be  su- 
perior in  the  matter  of  disunion,  also 
to  all  other  religions.  As  a matter  of 


fact,  however,  we  never  have  been 
divided  in  Christianity  as  Moham- 
medanism is  divided  to-day.  Persia 
is  full  of  sects  and  it  is  often  stated 
that  there  is  not  an  orthodox  Moham- 
medan in  the  land.  Mohammedanism 
is  one  of  the  most  perilous  and  fragile 
of  religions  when  at  last  dissolving 
forces  and  influences  are  brought  to 
bear  on  it.  A religion  of  ideas  can 
stand  a great  deal,  whereas  a statu- 
tory religion  such  as  Mohammedan- 
ism can  not  admit  any  light  and  can 
only  anticipate  collapse  when  new 
ideas  beat  upon  it  and  new  influences 
divide  and  undermine  it.  It  is  with- 
out any  power  of  adaptation. 

The  Mohammedan  world  is  con- 
fronting the  approach  of  a fearful  re- 
ligious collapse.  It  will  be  a terrible 
thing  if  that  collapse  comes  without 
sufficient  preparation  therefor  on  the 
part  of  the  Christian  Church,  with  a 
message  to  lay  hold  of  the  Moslem 
mind  when  the  old  institutions  finally 
break  down  beyond  all  possibility  of 
recovery. 

Christianity — False  and  True 

Most  of  all,  we  owe  a great  debt  to 
Mohammedanism  because  my  state- 
ment made  at  the  beginning  was  not 


entirely  true.  I said  we  were  under 
a special  obligation  to  a religion 
which  had  in  its  initial  program  re- 
pudiated Christianity.  But  what  was 
the  kind  of  Christianity  that  it  repu- 
diated? It  was  a false  kind.  The  re- 
ligion, with  which  Mohammed  col- 
lided 1,200  years  ago,  was  not  a true 
religion  and  deserved  to  be  over- 
thrown. It  was  not  the  Christian 
faith  as  we  understand  it,  but  a re- 
ligion which  died  away  before  the  im- 
pact of  Islam  because  Islam  had  some 
qualities  superior  to  those  which  that 
religion  had.  What  was  the  Christian 
faith  that  Mohammed  repudiated 
1,200  years  ago?  It  was  a travesty  of 
the  Christian  religion.  Because  the 
Christian  faith  they  denied  was  a 
Christian  faith  in  name  and  not 
Christianity,  we  are  bound  by  1,200 
years  of  obligation  to  give  to  the  Mo- 
hammedan world  a Christian  faith 
that  is  real  and  true,  and  to  offer  Mo- 
hammedans the  opportunity  to  undo 
their  judgment  of  1,200  years  by  ac- 
cepting the  true  light  and  the  true 
faith  in  place  of  the  false  representa- 
tion of  Christ  which  alone  was  offered 
in  the  name  of  Christianity  twelve 
centuries  ago. 


Wonderful  Opportunities 

We  stand  before  wonderful  oppor- 
tunities to-day  in  northern  Africa, 
where  the  animistic  peoples  are  wait- 
ing for  a faith  that  meets  the  needs  of 
human  souls  and  will  take  Islam, 
which  is  pressing  in  upon  them,  if  we 
do  not  offer  them  the  Christian  faith ; 
in  Egypt,  in  Turkey,  shaken  down  to 
the  foundations,  in  Persia  and  in  oth- 
er lands  where  doors  are  now  open 
and  no  barrier  is  interposed  to  ma- 
king Christ  known.  What  shall  we 
say  to  our  Lord  if  we  miss  these 
opportunities  and  deliver  over  to 
Islam  in  the  twentieth  century  more 
Christian  territories  or  more  lives 
that  belong  to  Him,  to  whom  we  are 
to  bring  not  those  lives  only  but  the 
230,000,000  people,  who  by  the  very 
earnestness  and  devotion  of  their  loy- 
alty to  Mohammed  and  his  faith  have 
shown  that  they  are  the  material  out 
of  which  may  be  made  the  true  and 
loyal  followers  of  our  Lord  and 
Savior  ? 


